The same remarks are applicable in reference to for the exchange of political prisoners, of whom North Carolina has none in custody.

Your proposition that I should send commissioners to hold an interview with you is also respectfully declined for the reasons set forth above.

Regretting, sir, that it is equally beyond my province to treat with you in regard to doing anything to alleviate the inevitable sufferings that attend the war, and assuring you that any proposition you may feel authorized to make for that humane purpose will be promptly forwarded to the proper authorities if intrusted to me,

I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

Z. B. VANCE.

[Inclosure Numbers 3.] NEW BERNE, November 7, 1862.

To His Excellency ZEBULON B. VANCE,

Raleigh:

SIR: Your communication of the 29th ultimo has reached me by flag of truce.

The rejection of the propositions made by me renders it unnecessary to correspond further with you in relation to them; but lest it should be inferred that by my silence I acquiesce in the justice of one remark in your communication I am compelled to address you again.

After giving your first and second reasons you use the following language:

"Your proposition is based on the supposition that there is baseness in North Carolina sufficient to induce her people to abandon their confederates and leave them to suffer alone all the horrors of this unnatural war for the skate of securing terms for themselves, a mistake which I could scarcely have supposed any one so well acquainted with the character of our people as yourself could have committed."

There is nothing in my letter, there is nothing I have ever said or written that can justify the imputation that I ever supposed the people of North Carolina could be guilty of any baseness. i may have mistaken the nature and extent of her obligations to what you call the new government. I have never seen the act, resolution, or decree by which the State "acceded to the new government." For nearly twelve months previous to my arrival here I had not see a newspaper or letter from the State. I presumed that one in your position could have informed me what your obligations were, and could have referred my communication to any other authority if your duty required it.

With deference I still think this might have been done without the unbecoming language I have quoted, entirely uncalled for, and especially ungracious in reply to a courteous letter.

From the best information I could procure I had believed that after several of the "Confederate States" had formed a compact to suffer "alone" all the horrors of this unnatural war, the people of North Carolina deliberately voted by a large majority against to call a convention to consider the "baseness" of separating them from the United States.

From the best information I could procure I had believed that her people had been aroused to revolution under the idea that wrong had